Negotiating cultural boundaries: Food, travel and consumer identities

TLDR

Food plays a key role in how travelers negotiate cultural boundaries during short‑term mobility. The study investigates how food influences boundary crossing and maintenance among short‑term travelers. Using identity and practice theory, the authors interviewed 28 American travelers after a 10‑day China trip to examine their food‑related practices. The analysis shows that travelers use food as a symbolic means to maintain boundaries with the Other, experiencing anxiety and alienation, and compensating by eating familiar Western foods to preserve a sense of home; limited local cultural capital and marketplace myths exacerbate negative experiences. Keywords include consumer identity, cultural capital, food, global consumer culture, tourism, and travel; acknowledgements thank Athinodoros Chronis and Giana Eckhardt.

Abstract

Abstract This study addresses the role of food in boundary crossing and maintenance processes in the context of short‐term mobility. We utilize an identity and practice theory approach to understand the ways travelers relate to food in the encounter with the cultural different Other. The study was conducted through interviews with 28 American consumers after a 10‐day trip to China. A semiotic data interpretation revealed the ways the informants made sense of their cultural experience in China through a continuous process of categorization of foods. Counter to the expectations of food consumption as the site of boundary crossing, we find that consumption of food abroad becomes a symbolic project of maintaining boundaries with the Other and sustaining a sense of home. The encounter with the Other through food caused anxiety and alienation, which consumers dealt with by consuming familiar, western foods that enabled the maintenance of an embodied sense of comfort and a familiar sense of home. We further suggest that lack of local cultural capital and marketplace mythologies about the Other as factors that shaped and elevated the negative experience during travel. Keywords: consumer identitycultural capitalfoodglobal consumer culturetourismtravel Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Athinodoros Chronis and Giana Eckhardt for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of this work.